Beast Snagga Orks

   Back in February, I'd been chatting to my brothers about the wargaming we planned to do this year and one of them gave in to temptation and bought themselves a combat patrol that none of us expected them to give in to. This sort of opened the flood gates of temptation and I found myself ordering two combat patrols in less than 24 hours. The second one I ordered was the World Eaters which have already been painted and have been on the table, but the first was the Beast Snagga Orks, which lingered mostly built, some painted but with no real momentum behind them.

   One of my brothers had the aim for 2025 that he wanted to get his Ork army on the table, so I wrote the option for them to appear in our current campaign (spoilers) and decided to also do a small force* so that I could reinforce him and keep the story going if he were to flag, but I did the new patrol of Beast Snaggas so that I wouldn't be stepping on his toes.

*it has since got out of hand

   This was a combat patrol that I started to build, sprayed the first squad, then felt intimidated by how to paint them and started other things instead. I tend to try to keep to the 3 colour rule when painting, so keeping non-black/white scale colours to 3 or less as more tends to get busy and just look wrong if you don't seriously plan them. I'm not good enough at getting warm and cold colours balanced, so sticking to the 3 colours tends to give me better results.

   These orks have green skin, 2 different animal skins on their backs, armour and trousers. If I went with "colours" I would go over that magic number without even looking at details and spot colours. The decision I went for was to copy my old Lizardmen skin colour of an off desert yellow for the scaly skins, go brown trousers to keep the brightness down and then rely on whites and blacks for the big blocks of other space, including the furry skins. Although, I did allow myself a bit of red for details as the various species of Squigs in the army will also be red.

   I then finished my first unit in March, started a post about it, then did nothing with the army for nearly 5 months as other projects took the priority. Now with Orktober coming up, I wanted to get the bulk of the army done while the drive was there.

   So below, we have the warboss and the two units of boyz, which just leaves the Squighogs from the combat patrol to go. Although there are 750/1000 point lists on the table that I would like to try if I don't get distracted too hard by other things.

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584th Liumia Pegasii Taurox Prime

   I'm very much trying to be good with my hobby spend and not doing brilliantly - especially considering how few games I have been playing this year - and the one project that I've ummed and urghed about the most is my Tempestus Scions.

   Ultimately, as they have a finish point that is reasonable, it makes sense to get this project done and with that in mind I had two last units to pick up;

1. The second infantry squad

2. The Turox

   As the thumb nail probably gave away, I bought the vehicle instead of the squad. The thinking was, that, while I normally try to get as much of my regular infantry painted while I still have the motivation, in this case, the project was likely to come unstuck when it came to buy the transport, so I cut that issue out and just bought it.

Posing with the command squad

   Cards on the table. This is a model I have never liked and had no plans of ever buying, but as one is needed for the Combat Patrol, I sucked it up and just got one.

   Now, that I've built and painted my first, I absolutely love it and want more. I kept the colours similar to the infantry - although I used a different beige to make sure it didn't match the cloth of the uniform exactly.

   The regimental badge is from an old Bretonnian decal sheet and fits almost exactly. While the number at the back is my time from my first Park Run at the end of September. 

   I am almost definitely planning on buying more of these as time goes on, as I just really enjoyed the finished project. Maybe this army will become a thing.

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Growing the Knights

   After painting the Eradicators and saying that scratched the itch quite nicely, I then bought some more marines fairly soon afterwards. In defence of myself*, a local player was having a fire sale of unbuilt kits after a domestic conversation and as I'd had some Blade Guard Veterans on the list of models that I really wanted but just could not justify the price tag of, and seeing some cheap it seemed stupid not to just pick them up**.

   I have also been thinking about my current level of gaming., One big thing was that I wasn't doing much collecting/painting for the Imperial side of the campaign as we were fairly well represented on that side, but due to the lack of games and a lack of gaming venue, this has slightly shifted the other way, so I wanted to have a second look at my Aurora Knights and fill any gaps.

*Someone needs to defend me

**I was persuaded during the visit to pick up some unplanned bits but hey

   This post is a few units that I picked up or have dug out of my own backlog and got ready for the table and to fill those gaps.

   The first unit are the Blade Guard Veterans that set this little debacle off. These have been painted as fairly standard 1st company vets for my Aurora Knights as seen in my Sternguard from the Leviathan boxset. When it came to the shields, I gave one a Ukrainian flag (as the guy selling the models has links to the war), a Norfolk flag (as I decided to buy these while in the county) and the last guy has a bit of a placer shield while I try to think of something else to do.

   Next up is an Invader ATV, which has been in my backlog for far longer than I am happy with. It came from a partworks magazine - not sure if it was Conquest or Imperium - but it was something I wasn't ever going to buy full price, but a tenner made it worth picking up. It was another model that I had painters block on trying to decide what should be gold and what should be mechanical. Now I have this, it probably needs a squad of Outriders to go with it.

   Next up is Captain Hippolytus of the 4th Company. I was chatting to a mate and he was working out a campaign for these space marines to play in next year***, at which point I noticed I didn't have much in the way of regular leadership for the Aurora Knights 4th Company - the glaring missing entry was the captain himself****.

    I decided as a rule of thumb, that I can break at my own leisure, battle company captains would wear Gravis armour (sort of baby Terminator armour) and reserve company captains could wear regular MKx armour - just so I can use what ever models I like but feel like there is a system. Hippolytus is therefore wearing the best in non-terminator armour the chapter can supply, with a cloak in his company colour and an ancient chainsword, once welded on Terra by a hero of the heresy*****. 

***which I am pretty sure won't happen 

****I do have a captain model for this chapter, but as he is in terminator armour, I want to keep him as the 1st company captain.

*****any rumours that a shrine world is missing it's star relic are unsubstantiated by the chapter

   Next is the Apothecary Biologis, from the Leviathan boxset. This model was so close to being finished before he must have gotten caught up in a tidy up session and packed away. I finished the last few bits and added the decals. He isn't perfect, but he is done.

   Lastly for this post is a model I painted a few months back on a whim, wrote a post for then didn't ever take a photo of, so he's been lumped to the bottom of this one. When we finished the Fratribusia campaign, I found some decals I wanted to use for any Imperial forces who had taken part (the crab claw with the skull on the banner) and the more I thought about it, the more a banner for the company that I got add campaign markings to as I went, made sense.

And yes, I do have more in the backlog for this project . . .

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Sling Off

   I've got two bigger posts of things I'm painting for another couple of projects that by rights should have beaten this one out, but as these figures are not going to be joined by any friends for a fair while, it was worth them jumping the queue.

   I bought some Mid-Late Roman Slingers a few years back as part of another order, just as a cheap pair of skirmishing units for my 15mm Crisis of the 3rd Century Roman project, although, I think they might be a touch later in their appearance. These models were stuck in their lolly sticks, sprayed and then sat in a draw for going on 3 years at this point. I'm currently having a bit of a sort out and trying to make my man cave/office usable* and, if I'm really good, include a permanent gaming table so I can actually play some games. These figures needed to be painted and put away, so that's what I did.

*not a death trap

   The colour scheme was pretty plain, I kept them in off white tunics as I think it's likely to be the most historically accurate for them and mixed the trouser and hair colours for variety. I have broken my basing convention for these armies with these guys, but I thought as fully skirmishing units I wanted that to stand out on the board, so instead of regular size bases but spread out, I halved the base size.

This project still has another 7 or 8 bases of units to go - mostly for one side addition to the idea - plus some scenery bits, so hopefully that won't take another 3 years to get around to.

Thanks for reading